New Friends and Foes
After a long flight, the plane lands in Kalos at last, and Max eagerly hops off and immediately dashes towards the exit of the airport. But before he can make it very far, Ash calls out to him, "Hold on there Max. We've still got a few things to do before we battle." Serena nods, obviously grateful that Ash has matured enough to not go immediately running off into Lumiose City with his 10-year-old charge. "First we need to buy camping supplies for you," she adds, listing everything off on her fingers. "Then me and Ash need to check into our hotel room and leave our stuff there. Plus, we can't just battle in the middle of the street. We've got to find a suitable spot." "And I need to bring out a much weaker team if this is going to be a fair match" Ash adds. Max apologises and re-joins the two. Then, they present their passports and step out into Lumiose City.
Max buys the first decent set of camping gear he can find, then immediately sits on a bench and proceeds to write down information about the various pokémon he sees. Ash and Serena decide to leave him at it while they go check into their room and Ash swaps his team, so they leave Pikachu with Max, then head off. Not that Max was aware that they were even gone. Max had always had a unique ability of observation. He could work out a pokémon's behaviour and instincts purely from watching them, which came in handy when writing his book. He'd only really discovered it after he and May returned home and he first decided he wanted to write one. Of course it came with a downside, that being that once he goes into his "Observant State", as May jokingly called it, he shuts out the rest of the world, and becomes totally unaware of the world around him until he's finished with what he is doing. By the time he is, Ash and Serena had returned and were waiting for him. He quickly shut his notebook, stuffed it in his bag, then followed the couple and Pikachu to the perfect place for his and Ash's battle.
After roughly 10 minutes of walking, they come across a small park. Ash smiles at the sight of it. "This is where I battled Clement for the first time" he says, smiling at the memory. "Pika Pi!" Pikachu chirps. "That's right," Ash translates. "Team Rocket interrupted it." Max and Serena rolled their eyes. They remember Team Rocket not very fondly. Then, Max and Ash step onto the part of the park they'd be using as their court, and ready their first pokémon. Pikachu waits on the side-lines with Serena, since he is definitely to strong for Max's team right now. Max's first pokémon is Treeko, and Ash sends out a blue, spindly, four-legged bug with a beige point on its head. Max's pokédex identifies it as a Surskit. Max has the urge to pull out his notebook and document it, but remembers he's supposed to battle it first.
"Since this is your first battle," says Ash, "I'll let you go first." Max thanks him, then Serena declares that the battle had commenced. Max immediately orders Treeko to use vine whip, but Surskit is able to dodge. "Now Surskit, Pin Missile!" Ash calls. As the attack is launched, Max quickly calls out, "Treeko, use tail whip to knock away the pins!" Treeko does so, but not without receiving one into his tail. Ash grins, "Good one!" he shouts. "But let's see how you handle this. Surskit, Quick Attack!" Surskit charges forward with blinding speed, barely giving Max enough reaction time. "Quickly, create a wall using leaf blade!" he orders. Treeko tries, but barely has enough time before Surskit head-butts him with its large spike. Treeko is knocked to the ground, and before he can get up, Ash shouts, "Now, I've beam!" The Ice beam crashes down on Treeko. In a last desperate attempt, Max yells, "Use vice whip to pull Surskit with you!" Vine whip wraps around the bug just as the Ice beam sends Treeko flying. The two pokémon crash to the ground. However, Surskit manages to get up, while Treeko remains immobile.
"Treeko, return!" says Max, before pulling out Mightyena's ball. "Ash's pokémon is weak," he tells it. Now's our chance to claim our first victory." Then he throws it out, yelling "Go Mightyena!" Mightyena gives a mighty battle cry as he readies for battle. "Quickly Mightyena, use Snarl!" Mightyena charges up the attack and launches it at Surskit, but it dodges. "Quick Attack!" Ash orders. Surskit charges at blinding speed, but luckily Mightyena is able to avoid it. "If he's too quick to hit with Snarl," Max thinks to himself, "then maybe we can try holding him down." "Use bite!" he says aloud. Mightyena charges at the Surskit, who isn't quick enough this time to avoid it. Mightyena sinks his teeth into the pokémon, but before he can finish the move, Max yells, "Now, hold him there and use Snarl!" Mightyena's mouth glows as the move charges up. Surskit tries to wiggle free but Mightyena's grip is too tight. So instead, it receives a face full of dark energy, rendering it unable to battle.
"That was a very clever trick," says Ash proudly. "But let's see how you handle this guy." Then, he threw out a pokéball and out came a grey and brown bunny. Max's pokédex explained that it was a Bunnelby. And it was a normal type that knew ground type moves. Of course. Max orders Mightyena to use tackle. Bunnelby takes the hit, then counters with head-butt. Mightyena is too close to dodge and is sent flying backwards. Bunnelby then uses dig. "When Bunnelby surfaces, try to throw it with your teeth!" Max orders. Mightyena does so, but not without receiving some damage. However, Ash isn't about to let Max win that easy. "Mud Shot!" he orders. Due to him being in the air, Mightyena can't avoid it, and is stuck across the face. If that wasn't bad enough, the fall from that causes some extra damage. Mightyena struggles to his feet, then falls back down and doesn't get up again. "Mightyena is unable to battle," says Serena. "The winner is Ash!" Pikachu cheers with delight and runs up to his trainer.
Max returns Mightyena to his ball and walks up to Ash. "Thanks for being my first battle" he says, holding out his hand. Ash smiles and shakes it. "The pleasure was all mine," he replies. "I had a lot of fun. It was nice to go back to the basics again." After that battle, Serena wants to go to the hotel. Ash decides to go with her and return to his proper team. Max decides to go off on his own and begin his journey through Kalos. Before he goes, Serena hands him a map with a Ryhorn ranch encircled on it. "That's where me and Ash will be," she explains. "If you want to find us, head there. It's where my mum lives." Max thanks her and pockets the map. Then, he heads off in search of a Pokémon Centre. As he heads off, he realises he never told Ash about the Green Orb he found. He contemplates heading back, but sees that the two already left. So, he shrugs and carries on. He'll figure out what to do with it later.
As Max walks to the Pokémon Centre, he takes out his notebook and writes about the Surskit and Bunnelby that Ash used in their battle. At last he finds the Centre and walks in, only glancing up from his notebook as he does. He enters the building and moves to put his notebook away, but as he does so he crashes into someone who had just got their pokémon healed. She's a blonde girl that looks around Max's age. She has blue eyes and a friendly face. Him crashing into her caused her pokéballs and bag to fall off the tray she was holding. The two balls fall to the ground with a clatter and the contents of her bag spill out on the floor. Max apologises and helps her clean it up. "It's fine," she says as she picks up her potions. "I wasn't looking where I was going either. Thank you." Max hands her the rest of her things and says, "It's no problem. Least I could do." He goes to heal his pokémon when he figures he should introduce himself, but when he turns around the girl is running out of the pokémon centre. He shrugs and has his pokémon healed.
As he's leaving the Centre, the girl he crashed into runs up to him. "Sorry to bother you," she says, her voice full of panic, "But my Dedenne escaped his ball. Can you help me find him?" Max agrees, since it was technically his fault because he crashed into her. "Thank you," says the girl. "I saw him running towards the park. He's small and quick, so two people would be better at catching him than one." With that, she takes his hand and pulls him with her towards the park. As they run, the girl describes what Dedenne looks like. Max draws what she described, which seems to impress her with his accuracy. From what Max can tell, Dedenne is a small electric mouse similar to Pikachu, with the electric sacks on his cheeks, but the colour scheme is different and he's shaped more like a mouse.
Eventually they reach the park. The girl suggests they split up to look for Dedenne. Max agrees, but right as they're about to separate, they hear the distress calls of a small pokémon. "Dedenne!" cries the girl, running in the direction the call came from. Max follows, pulling out Treeko's pokéball as he does. The girl's pokémon is being held by a man maybe 6-7 years older than Max. Next to him is a woman who looks the same age. They're both dressed rather peculiarly. The man's hair is matted and dyed lime green, and he's wearing a dark green t-shirt with a brown undershirt and white gloves. He has dark green trousers and black boots. The woman's hair is long, curly and dyed bright yellow, and she wears a cropped dark green shirt with no undershirt. She has dark green shorts on and black high-heeled boots. Both shirts have a large white T on the front. The two strongly remind Max of Team Rocket.
"Aww look at this cute little thing," the woman coos. "What should we do with it Sam?" She has a girly, albeit irritated voice. "Well Sarah," the man replies, "I think we should try to keep it. It's too cute to leave out here." His voice sounds pompous, but a bit slow. Dedenne lets out another distressed squeak, and the girl charges at the two. "Hands off my Dedenne you walking street art!" she calls. Max follows after her, worried something will go wrong. The two turn to look at them. "Well, well, well," says the woman, Sarah if Max recalls correctly. "Look what we have here Sam. A little twerp has come to reclaim her pokémon." Sam chuckles. "Perhaps she's just confused," he replies. "In case you've forgotten, when Team Terra wants something, then it officially belongs so us!" At this, the two throw their arms out in a grand gesture and laugh.
Perhaps they were expecting some reaction of terror or awe, but Max has absolutely no idea who these people are. He looks at the girl for clarity, but she seems just as stumped as he is. Sam stops laughing and looks at the two. "Nothing?" he asks, then drops his arms in disappointment. "Honestly, it's like you don't know who we are?" Some kind of Team Rocket knock-offs?" Max suggests, causing the girl to laugh. At those words, the two Team Terra members look affronted, and Sam shrinks to his knees. "Team Rocket knock-offs," he whimpers. "Such uncultured children." "It's as if these two have never watched the news" Sarah mopes. Then they get to their feet and yell angrily, "Team Terra is far superior to Team Rocket! We are an actual serious threat! You hear me punks!" But then the two realise that neither Max nor the girl are there anymore. The girl had used their moping to grab Dedenne and run off, with Max right behind her. "Hey!" Sarah yelled, charging after them. "You get back here! You can't just leave during a villain's monologue!" "I bet if we were Team Rocket you would've stayed to listen!" Sam yells, following after.
Max and the girl tear through the park, desperately trying to get away from Team Terra. But, while they had the head start, Sarah and Sam are bigger, and it doesn't take them long to catch up with them. Sarah tries to grab Max's arm but he wriggles free, so she grabs his bag instead. As the two wrestle, Sam begins trying to wrestle Dedenne's pokéball out of the girl's hand. Max wrenches himself free from Sarah's grip to help the girl, but in the process his bag splits open, causing his stuff to spill out, including the Green Orb. Sarah and Sam stop dead when they see it. Then they stare at Max. "It can't be," says Sam. "We blew that cliff up and found nothing. Where did you find this!?" Max explains how he came across it. "You little twerp!" Sarah yells. "We had our ears chewed off by the boss when we came back empty-handed. And you had The Orb this whole time!'
At that, the two lunge at the Orb. Max wants to just let them have it, but something yells at him to keep them from it, so he grabs it and his other stuff before they can get their hands on it. "Get back here!" Sarah yells. Buy before either she or Sam can make a move, their sight is blocked by a wall of flame. Max turns to see that the girl had pulled out her other pokémon, a small yellow fox, and ordered it to cover Max from view. Then she takes Max's hand again and leads him into a nearby building, making sure to return her pokémon to its ball before she enters. By the time Team Terra can see where Max was standing, he and the girl were gone. Sarah groans in anger and tosses the bit of bag in her hand to the ground. But then she has an idea. She picks it up again and searches it, eventually finding a name. She pulls out a radio and speaks into it. "Hello, Admin, it's me Sarah. We found the Jade Orb." The person on the other end speaks to her, which she replies with, "It's in the possession of a young boy from the Hoenn Region, named Max Maple. And he's travelling with the younger sister of the Lumiose Gym Leader."
The building Max is led into is a small restaurant. The girl leads him to a small table. "Want a drink?" she asks. "My treat. For helping me save Dedenne." "Oh, you don't have to," he replies nervously. "It's my fault he escaped after all." The girl smiles. "But I want to," she replies. "And I want to learn more about you. You don't seem like you're from here, and you have that weird green thing and I am full of questions." "You and me both" Max replies. They share a laugh, then the girl buys them both soft drinks that the author cannot name for copyright reasons.
Once she returns with the drinks, the two finally get around to introductions. "My name's Bonnie" says the girl, holding out her hand. "Max" Max replies, shaking it. "So, Max," Bonnie says, obviously trying his name out. "Any idea who those people were?" "Haven't the foggiest idea," Max replies. "All I know is they dress funny and are very similar to a pair of idiots me, my friends and my sister had to deal with 4 years ago back in Hoenn." Bonnie's eyes widen. "By any chance did these idiots have ridiculous haircuts, wear white clothes with an R on their chests and were accompanied by a Wabbafett and a talking Meoth?" she asks. This time, Max's eyes widen. "You had to deal with Team Rocket too?" he asks. Bonnie nods. "They kept coming after me, my friends and my brother," she says. "Especially my friend's Pikachu." Max laughs at that. "Funny," he comments, "they were after my friend's Pikachu too." They both stare at each other, then say "You're friends with Ash as well?" simultaneously. They both laugh at the coincidence. "Nice to meet a fellow fourth wheel then" says Bonnie. Max laughs and agrees.
From there, the two discuss their dreams. Bonnie tells him about how she wants to the world's strongest electric type trainer and take over her for her brother as the Lumiose Gym Leader. She also hopes to travel the world and find cute electric types not seen in Kalos, and to find someone to take care of her big brother while she's gone. Max in turn tells her about his dream to create a pokémon encyclopaedia full of information on every single pokémon in the world. He even shows her his sketches and what he's written so far. Bonnie marvels at Max's incredible skill at observation. Then, Bonnie points at the Green Orb. "What is that?" she asks. Max picks it up. "I don't know," he says. "I told you, I found it in a cave after a tremor caused a cliff I was walking on to collapse. Any time I think about getting rid of it, a little voice tells me not to." He shudders. "Reminds me too much of the Red and Blue Orbs from Hoenn." Bonnie looks at him quizzically. "The what?" she asks. "Long story" Max replies.
The two sit in comfortable silence for a few minutes and let their pokémon out to run around. Bonnie squeals with delight at the sight of Treeko and Mightena and proceeds to nuzzle them both. Then, she introduces the fire fox as a Fennekin, her starter pokémon. Max introduces Treeko and Mightyena, and the four pokémon get along like a house on fire. After a few minutes of watching her and Max's pokémon play, Bonnie has an idea. "Hey Max," she says, leaning forward. "Since we were both companions with Ash, and our goals will have us travelling the world, what say you and I travel together." Max thinks about her proposal, then nods his head. "Sure," he says. "Sounds like fun." Bonnie cheers at this. And so, their duo has been formed. A friendship that would eventually blossom into something so much more.